Edna Andrade

Biography

Edna Andrade was an early and influential pioneer of the Hard-Edged style, Op Art, and other forms of reductivist painting. Her work prefigured that of many painters experimenting with color and optical effects across complex geometric fields, including Bridget Riley, Gabriele Evertz, and Robert Swain. She made smart use of complicated imagery, as in a series of works from the 1980s, in which she appropriated the mathematically determined patterns used to decorate Islamic architecture. Andrade once remarked that she was struck by “how little it takes to upset the eye.” With her chromatic spectrums and intricate geometric patterns, she challenges viewers to engage new and different visual logics.